Astroturf is the act of professional interest groups designing campaigns that appear to be grassroots efforts, but are not. It is what the left has accused the tea parties of being. Only more and more it looks like the anti-tea party movement is truly astroturfing. Writing on January 15, 2010, Glenn Greenwald at Salon noted Barack Obama’s new head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Cass Sunstein, had championed creating fake websites and using outside 501(c)(3) interest groups to act as alleged independent champions of government policy and to “cognitively infiltrate” opposition websites, etc. In other words, Cass Sunstein has favored the government using outside parties as government propaganda agents to paint their opposition as fringe and undermine their credibility. Kind of like what has been happening with the tea party movement – lots of SEIU members pretending to be tea party activists causing violence in front of TV cameras. Considering Sustein’s recommendations, it is not far removed to speculate the Obama administration is behind a new anti-tea party website called The Other 95. Please click here for the rest of the post.

I don’t have a problem with Michael Steele speaking to Al Sharpton’s National Action Network. The Chairman of the Party must sometimes go where they normally dare not tread. I have a huge problem using RNC donor money to subsidize the National Action Network. This is a flat out misappropriation of funds — a gross misappropriation of funds. One wonders the reaction if donors were told their hard earned dollars that they sent to the RNC to help elect Republicans were instead flowing to Al Sharpton. Please click here for the rest of the post.

By a directive to the Secretary of Health and Human Services, “President Obama late Thursday ordered most hospitals in the country to grant the same visitation rights to gay and lesbian partners that they do to married heterosexual couples,” an order that applies to “all hospitals getting Medicare and Medicaid money.” Now, as it happens, I’m in agreement on the merits with the idea that same-sex couples should have had hospital visitation rights a long time ago, without the need for a redefinition of marriage; it’s a simple matter of recognizing that these are consenting adults and leaving them to arrange their affairs their own way. So what’s wrong with this picture? As it happens, quite a lot. Let’s step back and consider what we are seeing. Please click here for the rest of the post.

The attack was political. But, and I think I’ve been clear on this and hopefully in this post I’ll be even clearer, while it was political it doesn’t appear that it was partisan. A distinction like that used to be fairly easily understood. For those who don’t grasp the difference between political and partisan, it’s pretty simple. In our modern parlance, partisan means Republicans vs. Democrats. Political can include everything else. Like, for example, anarchist revolutionaries. How do we know this attack was political? Well, three developments in the story of the beating of Allee Bautsch and Joe Brown last Friday in the French Quarter have served to make it almost patently obvious that Bautsch and Brown were attacked out of a political motive… Please click here for the rest of the post.

Former President Bill Clinton, while speaking at an event sponsored by the Center for American Progress Action Fund recently, said this: [W]ords have consequences as much as actions do, and what we advocate, commensurate with our position and responsibility, we have to take responsibility for. Mr. Clinton makes an excellent larger point about our Political Heroes in general and President Obama in particular, though this was certainly not his intention. I think it a bit disingenuous of him to conflate anti-Government rhetoric (generically) with the Oklahoma City bombing in particular…but he’s on to something here with his overall concerns. And, while Clinton was quick to pat the Tea Parties on the back for exercising their first amendment rights by rallying and protesting against “big Government,” he was also quietly suggesting they should play nicer whenever and wherever they do it. And it is here that Mr. Clinton and I go our separate ways. . . Please click here for the rest of the post.

Individuals who made Freedom of Information inquiries of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit have come under police scrutiny, including interviews to determine their political beliefs, scientific qualifications, and details regarding computer usage, according to an article in The Financial Times. Even more troubling, local police are being aided in their investigation by members of the National Domestic Extremism Team, the unit set up to counter home-grown terrorists and radicals. The purported reason for their involvement is their skills in computer forensics and their experience dealing with environmental terrorists. But it’s curious that, given the very real threat of terrorism, both in the U.K. and the U.S., precious resources are allocated to tracking down a culprit who would be glorified as a “whistleblower” if his politics were different. Please click here for the rest of the post.

Hoping for the best but spending for the worst, national Democrats acknowledged Friday they intend to inject a considerable $50 million this Fall in contested House, Senate and gubernatorial campaigns across the nation. The assistance–which will consist primarily of money and services dolled out by the Democratic National Committee and the White House’s political operation, Organizing for America–will begin sometime in June, and is intended to foment depressed down-ticket fundraising and voter contact programs in advance of the midterm elections. Please click here for the rest of the post.